March 2012

03/04/2012

It has been actually been snowing here quite hard today, yesterday it was too warm to even wear a coat but today I put on my woolly hat and winter coat and planned what to do when we are snowed in. It has since stopped snowing and the sun is back out so I won't be cleaning out the utility room or catching up on the ironing (as if I was really going to do this).

Back in half term we took the children down to Cornwall for a little break and family bonding time as it is hard to get the whole family spending time together when you have a 15 year old who thinks we are highly embarrassing and a love sick 11 year old. But down in Cornwall there is no choice. There is nowhere for them to escape. It was a lovely quiet week of not doing an awful lot, cuddling up on the sofa watching movies, walks on the beach, and 5 evenings of trying to light the open fire convinced that the next day the wood we had got would in fact be of dry enough quality to set fire to. We never had a fire that lasted for more than 5 minutes and we settled for big blankets to add the cosy factor.

It really wasn't as warm as it looked on the beach, it was ear ache cold. But the beach is just the best place to be whatever the weather, watching the sea and the people out and about never gets boring. For an adult or child anyway. According to the teenager it's the most boring and pointless place ever. Why would anyone want to do this? Why would you live so far away from major high street stores and grotty parks with grotty benches to sit on with your mates all evening? But as you can see from evidence A and C there are traces of a smile on his face so we decided that his rants were merely for effect and ignored him.

03/02/2012

You know when you come across a blog that you so wished you had written? Well today I found that very thing. We have quite a bad infestation of ladybirds. I know, I know, ladybirds are sweet and all that but they really aren't when they are coming in through your bedroom windows. We have to keep the windows shut all the time just so the situation doesn't worsen but still they are in our bed, on our pillows, in the bath... They are so many of them that I actually find them quite intimidating. They are really starting to freak me out.

So, today, I googled 'ladybird infestation' in the hope of finding someone who has a similar bug issue and an amazing way to deter the little visitors from wanting to live with me. I did find a fair few people with this problem but the only answers I could find were based around 'you lucky person! Ladybirds are lovely, we should welcome them in...' etc. I even found one from a guy asking for the poor ladybug victim to send him some of the bugs so he could start up his own colony. Not what I was hoping for. But then I came across one of the funniest things I have ever read. A kindred spirit. And by reading this you may have a bit more of an idea of my predicament.

READ ON...

I think we may have an infestation of ladybirds.

According to my beloved, impolitely reading over my shoulder as I type, infestation may be a little strong, or dramatic, or something.

Revision: Though they may be deviously and misleadingly few in number, I think we may potentially be lethally overrun by deadly ninja ladybirds.

This poses a problem. See, I am not afraid of ladybirds, not like mice. Ladybirds don’t scuttle, or hide under your sofa, or nibble your belongings, and are only really terrifying if they fly at you while you are on the toilet.

The problem is, however, that we mainly seem to have the kind of ladybird who is particularly keen on flying at you while you are on the toilet. You know the type. There are probably dirty niche internet chatrooms full of them.

But I am still confused. How is an infestation of ladybirds possible? Surely the air at this altitude (third floor) is simply to thin for them to live? This is probably the reason you don’t see ladybirds climbing Everest very often, for example.

First there was just one, in the bathroom, perched on the geranium in an aesthetically pleasing fashion. Then there was another, in the living room, skipping sweetly across the window sill. Then there was another, curvy-side down on the rim of the bath, like a tiny tipped-up turtle. Except red. And dead. Then another on the windowsill, next to the first one, which was also dead.

And though they keep dying, they also seem to keep coming, and the problem I have is that I can’t stop the cycle, see, because I CAN’T KILL THEM.

It’s impossible. It’s like having an infestation of fairies. I spent a childhood surrounded by picture books with the little babybug emblazoned in the corner. There were songs about them, stuffed furry ones to cuddle at night and my GOD, they were ALL Over Christmas jumpers - and am I supposed to kill them now?

Spiders, I can happily kill, or at least throw out of a window without a parachute. Midges? Smoke the hell out of them. Kill all bluebottles. Fuck the cockroach community. Wasps? Dead faster than you can say . Mice? Snap their little necks. Ants - spray’em, bake’em, grill’em, fry’em, who cares, they’re ants.

But these? No.

No matter how hard I try to do it, I can’t drop a book on the ladybirds. It would feel like putting a bullet through a butterfly or kicking a kitten in the knees. I keep telling myself that they have poisonous wee, or secret sets of sharp and pointy teeth that in the dead of the night they’ll bite my nose off with, but no. I still can’t do it.

They’re cute. They’re red, and spotty. They flutter, sometimes. And unless they radically adjust the one-out/one-in policy, or, in fact, the de facto one-dead/one-in policy, I can’t see that they’re actually going to be able to bathroomarily overpower me and make me dead.

But damn them for being cute. And damn me for being a wuss about it. It’s this kind of policy of appeasment that started the second world war. It’s a terrifying thought. Today, I allow the ladybirds, tomorrow, Hitler invades.

My flat.

While I’m on the toilet.

They’re a worrying thing, ladybirds. You can see why I might be fretting.